Between the Bookends at GeekMom

Book stack photo: Flickr user austinevan

It’s time for another look at the GeekMoms’ never-ending stack of books. Collectively, we sure manage to make our way through a fair number of pages, whether we’re reading them on dead trees or e-readers. Here’s what we’ve read this month.

This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Contact wiredlabs@wired.com to report an issue.

After Amy received a bright yellow box earlier this week with an underwear-clad superhero on it, she’s looking forward to diving into an early look at Dav Pilkey’s lastest adventure, Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers. Apparently George and Harold are going to go back in time to deal with a school bully. She would have started it by now, but her daughter has been hoarding it since its arrival.

Ariane was sick of the same old books in her daughter’s bookshelf and finally dusted off the old library card. She and her 2-year-old daughter found a few hidden gems there. Ariane adored the duck’s comically simple answers in Ducks Don’t Wear Socks by John Nedwidek. She also enjoyed the delightful cadence and southern charm of Bedtime at the Swamp by Kristyn Crow. Her daughter’s favorite was the bizarre yet entertaining Moo Cow Kaboom (which she calls “boom cow”) by Thatcher Hurd. All three titles were quickly purchased as a permanent addition to their home’s reading collection.

Image: Scribner

It has been years since Stephen King’s The Dark Tower ended, and the conclusion left a sour taste in Kelly Knox’s mouth. She never thought she’d find herself on the Path of the Beam again. When she heard that the newest entry in the series, The Wind Through the Keyhole, took place on Mid-World before the end of the series, though, she couldn’t resist. Her favorite moments in the Dark Tower series have all been in Roland’s past, so she was willing to give the gunslinger’s story another try. The Wind Through the Keyhole follows a young Roland shortly after the death of his mother. The action takes place before the world moved on, similar to Kelly’s favorite novel in the series, Wizard and Glass. While she’s still in the middle of the book, Kelly has been surprised to find that it’s nice to revisit old friends from the Dark Tower. Readers who have never entered the gunslinger’s world can be quickly caught up, so if you’re curious about what The Dark Tower is all about without investing in seven books, this might be a good place for you to start.

This past week, in addition to this month’s GeekMom Book Club selection, Patricia snuck in The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks. The movie with the same name is out in theaters right now. A young Marine infantryman served multiple tours in Iraq managed to survive numerous IED attacks. A laminated picture of a girl he had picked up in the sand at the beginning of his first tour was thought to be his good luck charm. After he finishes his Marine enlistment, he searches for the girl, finds her and becomes part of her (and her son’s) life. Part of the beauty of Sparks’ books is his spectacular setting in North and South Carolina. The book was very good, and the day after Patricia finished the book she saw the movie and was not quite as enamored with the movie version: for starters, it was set in Louisiana instead of North Carolina. Secondly, they didn’t seem to make the Keith Clayton character quite as evil as portrayed in the book. There are many many other differences also, and I will simply say that the book is much better. The Lucky One is an adult book that is probably tame enough for teenagers; there are adult themes such as language and references to lovemaking but nothing graphic.

Melissa Wiley is trying to brush up her German by slowly — veeerrry slowly — reading her way through Heidi, one of her childhood favorites, auf Deutsch. A week into the project, she has finally reached page two. In her native language, she has been enjoying (at a much brisker pace) her third trip through Alan Bennett’s delightful The Uncommon Reader, a book that speaks to the soul of every bookworm. And some of the happiest moments of her week were spent enjoying a treasured family read-aloud, Meindert DeJong’s The Wheel on the School with two of her children. It’s the first time for the six-year-old, and like her sisters before her, young Rilla is transfixed by the efforts of six Dutch schoolchildren to lure storks back to the rooftops of their tiny village.

In need of a book, Kris Bordessa pulled Shine by Lauren Myracle out of her son’s reading stack last week. She was a quarter of the way into the story before she realized it was that book, the one that set the literary world on its ear last year when Myracle dealt so graciously with the folks at the National Book Foundation who mistakenly named the author a finalist in the National Book Awards. Award or no, the story of a gay boy who is brutalized in a small town hate crime is definitely worth a read.

This month has been a slow book month for Jules Sherred as she has read only two books. The first book was Blue Magic by A.M Dellamonica. Blue Magic tells the story of how lives are forever changed in the wake of a magical ecological disaster. It is the sequel to the award winning novel Indigo Springs. Even though she hadn’t read the first book in this series, Jules found it to be an overall satisfying read. Jules has never been more thankful for a character than she was for the character of trans man Ev Lethewood. She also read Redshirts by John Scalzi. She didn’t just read it, she devoured it! It was every thing she could have hoped for in a book that both spoofs and plays homage to the science fiction television genre, making use of and poking fun at ridiculous technobabble, bad science, plots that make no sense, and so much more. Laugh out loud funny, this book is a must read once it is released June 5, 2012, especially if you are a true fan of science fiction television. If you are a Star Trek fan, especially a TOS fan, this book will tickle you in even more special ways.

Here’s The Thing With Ad Blockers

We get it: Ads aren’t what you’re here for. But ads help us keep the lights on. So, add us to your ad blocker’s whitelist or pay $1 per week for an ad-free version of WIRED. Either way, you are supporting our journalism. We’d really appreciate it.